Somewhere in My Memory
by aritzen
Summary: [old] Akemi remembers the past and hopes for the future.


Notes: I originally posted this fic under an old account on March 10, 2006.

* * *

 **Somewhere in My Memory**

-x-

 _Akemi,_

 _Please give these cassette tapes to your sister when she is old enough. Keep them safe before then. I'm sure you understand. Thank you._

 _Mama loves you._

Akemi stared at the crumpled piece of scrap paper. Even after all these years, Mama's messy handwriting hadn't faded. A national museum couldn't have preserved a piece of paper better than what Akemi had done. Sure, she had stuffed it into her pocket when she first received the note and then forgot about it for a while. Misplaced it a couple years later but found it eventually after much rummaging. But the point was, she kept it despite the risk. She kept it to remind herself of her task, of the reasons to live, and to remember Mama.

She didn't remember Kaasan much, but she remembered and loved Mama. She loved Shiho-chan. She loved Tousan too, of course, even though she didn't see him as often.

Akemi shook her head slightly, as if to prevent herself from nodding off. With the heater humming, the curtains shut, and only a desk lamp lit, it wasn't hard to feel sleepy. However, she was aware that she shook her head not because her eyelids were heavy but because she wanted to clear her mind from the heavy memories.

Soon, she told herself, soon. Soon, the darkness would end. Soon, the sadness would go. Tomorrow, she would pay a visit to an old friend. From the open drawer, she pulled out an opened brown package and transferred the cassette tapes into a waterproof plastic bag. As she sealed the bag, she caught sight of the framed photo.

That was the last time Shiho-chan wanted to look into a camera. Shiho-chan was about five years old, and she was about twelve. Wearing a bluish flowery dress, she stood with her hands clasped behind her back, head tilted to the side, ponytail up high. Shiho-chan was clad in jeans and a simple white T-shirt, bending over so that she could place her hands on her knees. Behind them stood the Tokyo Tower. Akemi didn't remember the person who took the picture, but it was a tourist. The sisters had snuck out of the house and decided that a photo would be a good souvenir for the experience.

That was the last time she saw Shiho-chan so happy.

"Soon," she said firmly. She tore her eyes away from the photo and picked up the calendar on her desk. "Soon."

-x-

Surprising even herself, Akemi knew she had a good memory. Not many children could recall what happened back when they were three years old. Or maybe everyone could if what happened was drastic.

This day, Kaasan and Tousan stepped into the house, returning from work. But unlike before, Kaasan was screaming at Tousan. Their faces were red, but Akemi couldn't recall Tousan yelling at the top of his lungs. He seemed calm, even though she was sure that he was angry. He was furious, perhaps. They didn't even notice Akemi when she ran to the door to greet them.

"You are not accepting that offer!" Kaasan shouted. She threw her handbag onto the dining table and slammed down her hands.

"It's a good research opportunity, and the money is—"

"Do you know what they do? Those—"

Stinking bastards, she had said. Or maybe something worse. "Stinking bastards" undermined them. Akemi didn't remember anything else from the argument. She had burst out crying and had run to the nice auntie next door who babysat her during the day.

The next morning, Kaasan and Tousan left for work as if nothing had happened. But Kaasan never came home afterwards. She only remembered Tousan's tears and a mumble: "Those sons of dogs."

-x-

When Akemi was five, a strange but nice lady entered the house with Tousan. Kaasan had black hair. Tousan did (but his had white, too). Everyone had black hair. But this lady had golden hair. She even forgot to take off her shoes when she waltzed into the living room to talk to Akemi.

She crouched down and held Akemi in her hands. Her beautiful smile reminded Akemi of Kaasan. "You're Akemi?" she asked and the large glasses on her nose slid down a little. She didn't seem to notice. Those glasses were like Tousan's, only square. Tousan's were round.

"Who are you?" Akemi asked. She liked the lady. Maybe she would stay and play with her. Kaasan used to play dolls with her, and ever since the nice auntie next door moved away, the dolls had only been gathering dust. It felt weird to play alone. And Tousan was really bad at playing dolls.

"Akemi," Tousan's deep, husky voice sounded from above her head. He sat down on the carpeted floor with a grunt and pulled his daughter into his arms. "Is it okay for this lady to stay with us?"

"Does she know how to play dolls?" Akemi asked.

Tousan looked at the lady. Her blue eyes twinkled, and she grinned. "I know how to play dolls. I can even teach you how to play lots of other fun games, Akemi." It wasn't until then that Akemi realized that the lady had a strange sound to her words. She remembered that once a long time ago, Tousan had invited a man who also had golden hair and blue eyes to their house. Tousan had said that he was a foreigner and that the weird sounds were accents. Maybe all people with golden hair and blue eyes were foreigners and spoke with accents. But what did that matter?

Akemi smiled. She tugged the lady's hand and tried to pull the lady toward her pile of toys. The lady rose, hand holding Akemi's, and let Akemi lead her.

They got along very well. Later, Akemi would call the lady Mama.

-x-

"Mama, you're getting fat!" Akemi exclaimed with exaggerated disgust, as if she had finally found a chance to scold Mama instead of the other way around.

Mama and Tousan howled with laughter; Tousan almost choked on his dinner.

"What?" Akemi didn't understand what was so funny about her exclamation. It wasn't funny when people were fat. She heard they got sick easily and died early. She didn't want Mama to die. Maybe they didn't believe her. "Your stomach is getting bigger every day, Mama!" she cried out indignantly. "You eat too much food."

Mama wiped her eyes with the back of one hand and the inner wrist of the other. "What am I supposed to do, Atsushi?" she asked Tousan, trying very hard to look serious and solemn. "Akemi is discriminating me because I'm fat."

Tousan cleared his throat and put down his chopsticks. He was trying hard not to laugh. "I don't know, Elena. I do not know." He snickered some more before he turned to his daughter. "What do you think of a younger brother or sister, Akemi?"

Akemi furrowed her brows in imitation of Tousan when he was thinking hard and in the mood for disapproval. "I don't want one."

The smiles on Tousan's and Mama's faces vanished just as suddenly as they had appeared. They stared at her. Then Mama looked at Tousan.

He asked softly, "What do you mean, you don't want one?"

Akemi bit into her chicken wing and kicked her legs under the table. "Yuki-kun at school has a little brother. And he's a _pain_." Emphasis on the word "pain." She dropped her chicken, picked up her glass of water with her wrists in an attempt to prevent her oily hands from dirtying the glass, and gulped two mouthfuls of water.

Mama smiled and placed her hand gently on Akemi's head. "Yours won't be. You'll get along like best friends."

"Really?" Akemi cast Mama a wary look.

"Absolutely!" Mama said with enthusiasm. Tousan nodded in agreement as he picked up his chopsticks.

Akemi raised her eyebrows, still suspicious, but she said, "Okay." Then she frowned. "What's this have to do with you being fat?"

Mama and Tousan only smiled.

-x-

Babies were boring.

Akemi sat beside the crib and stared at her new little sister. Mama and Tousan called her Shiho. Shiho-chan had the same hair as Mama did. Akemi wondered if Shiho-chan was a foreigner and spoke with accents.

"You're boring," Akemi said after another ten minutes of silent staring contest. Not that Shiho-chan was participating. Shiho-chan had forfeited twenty minutes ago, which was when the contest started when Akemi came into the room. "But you're cute." Akemi smiled. She remembered Tousan feeding Shiho-chan a bottle of water in the hospital. She'd wanted to feed Shiho-chan, too, but Tousan said no. "You're like a doll." Then Akemi tilted her head to the side and thought for a minute. "Except when you cry," she added. "You're a monster when you cry."

Like a doll, Shiho-chan didn't respond.

Akemi scratched her head and jumped off her chair. She walked out of the room and decided it was more fun to play with the dolls than to stare at a sleeping baby.

-x-

When Akemi was almost eight, when Shiho-chan was starting to learn how to walk, Akemi recognized the tensed atmosphere in the house. It was similar to the time when Kaasan never came home again. But Mama and Tousan didn't argue. They were just grim.

Akemi almost never eavesdropped. It was a bad habit that Shiho-chan acquired later on. But that day, Shiho-chan was crying. Mama and Tousan were in their room, and they didn't seem to have heard Shiho-chan cry.

Akemi was about to knock on the door when she heard Kaasan's name mentioned. Her hand froze in midair, and she stood outside and listened.

"—killed her because she wouldn't cooperate." That was Tousan's voice.

"Unfortunately, that's how the Organization operates. She knew too much." Mama's voice. Akemi had never heard Mama so serious before. "What I don't understand is... we cooperated."

There was a drawn-out silence. Akemi was so stunned that she couldn't even hear Shiho-chan's cries. There seemed to be a sigh. From Tousan, Akemi thought.

"Atsushi."

"We don't know for sure."

"I can't believe it, Atsushi." Akemi barely made out Mama's shaky whisper. Mama's tone was sharp, though. It sounded as if she was angry. Akemi shrank from the door. She was afraid that Mama would start yelling like what Kaasan did years ago.

"We don't know for sure!" Tousan's voice rose.

"I've been in the Organization longer than you have, Atsushi." A chair scraped against the floor. Akemi thought she heard Mama sob. She mumbled something that Akemi couldn't make out.

There was another silence before Tousan exclaimed, "What will happen to them? What will happen to the children?"

Akemi didn't hear what Mama said. It was a whisper. And then silence loomed in the house. Only Shiho-chan's cries echoed in the house.

-x-

Akemi remembered the day when, instead of Tousan and Mama stepping through the front door, a tall woman in black accompanied by two other men marched into the house.

The three of them glanced around the house. The woman's eyes met Akemi's. "Miyano Akemi?" she asked, though it was more of a statement than a question. She sounded like an upset teacher at school.

"Who are you?" Akemi backed away from the three strangers. "Where are Tousan and Mama?"

"I'll be your guardian from now on," the woman answered and delicately evaded the second question. She handed a stack of paper to Akemi as if she was handing a client her business card. "Those are the official papers." She smiled while Akemi flipped through the papers clumsily. "Where is your sister?"

Akemi stared at the woman and dropped the stack of paper onto the floor. Then she made a dash for a room and tried to slam the door shut. But one of the men moved faster and stuck his foot between the door and the wall. Akemi gave up pushing against the door and backed further into the room, staring wide-eyed at the three strangers entering her sister's room.

"Where are Tousan and Mama?" Akemi raised her voice as she extended her hands backward to feel what she was backing into. She felt the cold bars on Shiho-chan's crib. She felt Shiho-chan's warm little hands trying to grab her fingers.

"Oh good. There's Miyano Shiho," the woman remarked as if she hadn't heard Akemi's question. "Akemi, pack whatever you want to bring with you. We'll be moving to my apartment from now on." She signaled one of the men to help with the packing.

"Where are Papa and Mama?" Akemi demanded. It was her first time using "Papa," but she knew Mama sometimes addressed Tousan using Papa instead of Tousan or Atsushi. Mama had strange accents even for "Papa." Instead of "PApa," she said "PaPA." Stressing the second syllable.

"Now, honey," the woman said without bothering to hide her frustration and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "It'll be a lot easier for us and for you if you did what I told you to without making such a fuss."

"You're kidnappers!" Akemi yelled and wished the babysitter hadn't left. Shiho-chan started crying. "And don't touch my sister!" She glared at the other man who'd tried to approach the crib. He held his hands up as if a gun was pointed at him and stepped back.

The woman rolled her eyes, sighed in exasperation, and headed for the phone in the living room. When she returned, she told the two men to just grab the girls. They would come back for their stuff later.

Akemi screamed, punched the man, bit him, yanked on his hair, but it was useless. She never saw Mama or Tousan again.

-x-

When Akemi was ten, she received a brown package. She was playing with three-year-old Shiho-chan in a playground when a stranger walked past her and threw the package at her feet. Before she could look up to see who the stranger was, he was gone. Or maybe it was a she. She never found out. Along with the package, there was a note. Mama's note. Mama's handwriting.

"What's that?" Shiho-chan asked and crawled over the sand to sit next to her sister. She accidentally flung sand onto her shorts when she tucked her legs beneath her and pulled the toy shovel out from behind her back. She stared at the sand on her, as if she didn't know what to do with the excess, unwanted sand, before looking up at her sister again. "What's that say?"

"Nothing," Akemi said in a low voice and stuffed the piece of paper into her jeans pocket. She picked up the package and ran off, leaving a puzzled Shiho-chan kneeling on the sand. She came back after a while, empty-handed, and returned to Shiho-chan's side. Shiho-chan scooted away from her older sister and dug at the sand, pouting. It took Akemi a minute to realize why her baby sister was sulking. "It really was nothing!" Akemi defended. "It was a note from, uh, my secret admirer! Yeah, that's it. My secret admirer."

Shiho-chan turned around with round eyes. "You have a secret admirer?"

Akemi rolled her eyes and snorted mentally. Kids these days. When was the first time she knew what a secret admirer was? "Yeah. Maybe. I don't know." She shrugged.

"I wish I had a secret admirer," three-year-old Shiho-chan declared to no one in particular.

"Do you even know what a secret admirer is?"

"Of course," Shiho-chan said proudly. She even sat up straight to look taller.

"Well, what is it?" Akemi tried to suppress her amused grin but failed.

"I don't know," Shiho-chan said just as proudly.

-x-

Shiho-chan wanted to play with the dolls, but Akemi kept them locked away in the closet. It didn't matter whether Shiho-chan pouted, sulked, whined, or kicked her legs... Akemi told her the dolls reminded her of her parents. Akemi told her she could play with the newly bought bouncy balls instead.

Shiho-chan liked to play with the bouncy balls. She liked to fling them hard onto the floor and watch them bounce and hit the ceiling. Akemi supported that. Broken light bulbs were common. The guardian-lady (Akemi and Shiho-chan called her Miss Guardian; the sisters had long forgotten her name) was aghast when they shattered the light bulbs for the first time. When she realized she couldn't stop them with scolding or punishments, she threw her arms into the air and groaned with exasperation.

Akemi and Shiho-chan came back one day only to discover that all their toys were gone. Even the dolls.

-x-

As they grew older, the chances for them to leave the house without supervision became less and less. They were often locked in the house when Miss Guardian wasn't around. It didn't take Akemi long to find out where the key was, thanks to Shiho-chan's Awesome Spying Skills. It was in the second drawer to the left of the make-up desk in Miss Guardian's room. She grabbed the key, and she took Shiho-chan on a tour around Tokyo.

They even had their photo taken in front of Tokyo Tower.

Miss Guardian yelled at them when they returned. Akemi vowed silently that the next time they snuck out, they would never return. They would run away to a better place. They would go to the police. They would tell Mr. Policeman everything. They might even find Tousan and Mama.

The key disappeared from the second drawer, however. It took another week or so of Shiho-chan's Awesome Spying Skills to discover where the key went. It was lying on the top of the tallest bookshelf.

Akemi dragged a chair over to the bookshelf but found out that even with a chair, she couldn't stretch her arm long enough to reach the key. Her hand touched the top all right, but she couldn't feel where the key was. Miss Guardian, who was very tall, must have placed it very far from the outside edge. She knew that if she climbed onto the bookshelf, she would be able to reach the key. But she doubted if the shelves would hold her weight.

"I'll do it!" Shiho-chan volunteered, wanting to feel helpful. She almost shoved Akemi (when she was still standing on the chair) to the side. Akemi quickly hopped off the chair and pulled it away from the bookshelf as Shiho-chan started climbing the bookshelf like a monkey.

"I see the key!" Shiho-chan announced with a triumph smile, clutched the key in her hand, and waved it to her sister. Akemi cheered. Everything would go as—

One end of the shelf that Shiho-chan was standing on slid and fell to the level below. Books tumbled and scattered onto the floor like a shower. It couldn't withstand the bouncing from Shiho-chan. Akemi gasped and rushed forward to catch Shiho-chan, who had tightened her grip on the top of the shelf. When Shiho-chan managed to look at Akemi and decided to jump down, the bookshelf lost its balance and the entire shelf crashed.

When Akemi regained consciousness, she was in a hospital. She heard Miss Guardian's voice coming from her left and turned her head in response. She forced her eyes to open.

"Stop biting your blanket, Shiho!" Miss Guardian scolded in a soft voice and tried to yank the white blanket out of Shiho-chan's mouth.

"Leave me alone!" Shiho-chan shifted away from Miss Guardian and glared. She looked as if Miss Guardian's touch induced pain on her.

Akemi couldn't help smiling. "Don't bite your blanket," she said in a weak voice. That was another one of Shiho-chan's bad habits. She always bit her blanket whenever she was nervous or scared. The other bad habits mainly involved her Awesome Spying Skills.

Shiho-chan gasped when she heard her neesan's voice. She dropped the blanket and rushed to the bed. "I thought you were dead!" She locked her arms around her neesan's arm, afraid that if she didn't, neesan would really die.

This was another moment that made Akemi roll her eyes and say "kids these days." When did she learn what the concept of death was? Akemi felt the smile on her face disappear. She'd never accepted the idea that Tousan, Kaasan, and Mama were dead. They had told her that. They had told her and Shiho-chan that. Shiho-chan didn't show that she understood. And Akemi refused to believe it. Maybe the plan to run away failed because...

Shiho-chan climbed onto the hospital bed and curled up beside her neesan. Akemi noticed Miss Guardian had left the room. Temporarily, probably.

"Neesan," Shiho-chan whispered and snuggled closer to Akemi.

Akemi never recalled that Shiho-chan could speak in such a serious tone before. She stared at her younger sister. "What?" She'd meant to ask how Shiho-chan was doing, considering she herself had apparently wound up with a broken leg and a terrible headache. But her sister's tone told her that something else was going on. Something more urgent.

"I heard Miss Guardian," Shiho-chan continued in the low voice. "She said that she'd be separating us."

Akemi felt a chill down her spine. If it weren't because of the pain in her body, she would've sat up and screamed "WHAAAAT!" so loud that they would hear it in Antarctica. In reality, however, Akemi was speechless. Her mouth hung open. "No." She shook her head. "No. She can't."

"What should we do?" Shiho-chan asked in a whisper. She sounded like she was going to cry.

The door opened. Shiho-chan sat up in a jolt. Akemi couldn't see, since Shiho-chan's back was facing her, but she knew. She knew Shiho-chan and Miss Guardian were staring at each other.

"Come on, Shiho," Miss Guardian said and extended her hand. "Let's go home. Visiting hours are over." She sounded like a fox. She looked like one. She probably smelled like one. Whatever foxes smelled like.

"No. I'm not leaving neesan." Shiho-chan moved closer to Akemi. "You want to take me away from her."

Miss Guardian laughed. "Now that's a lie. Come on. The doctor needs to check on Akemi. The sooner you come, the sooner—"

"You're the liar!" Shiho-chan shouted. "I heard you!"

A man walked past Miss Guardian and grabbed Shiho-chan. Miss Guardian stared as Shiho-chan tried to struggle out of the man's grip before she stepped out of the room. Akemi tried to grab hold of her sister's extended arms but failed. The nurse hurried in and fought with Akemi for a while to inject the medicine into Akemi. Akemi fell asleep against her will. She remembered Shiho-chan's cry for neesan.

-x-

Akemi didn't get to see Shiho-chan again until she was twenty. It took years to finally get permission from the higher-ups of the Organization to approve of her visit to the United States. When she was on the plane to Boston, she worried whether Shiho-chan would still remember her, how much Shiho-chan had grown, whether Shiho-chan... Only three letters were exchanged between the two sisters during those nine long years. The Organization checked the letters, too, so nothing much was written in those three letters.

It took a while for Akemi to spot her sister. If it were in Japan, she would've picked out her sister with no trouble at all. Shiho-chan had inherited her mother's hair. Reddish blonde. But here in the United States, a lot of people had hair of similar shades. Actually, it was mixed. Akemi was afraid that Shiho-chan might have changed so much that she wouldn't recognize her.

Then she caught sight of a small girl standing in the crowd. She looked extremely small compared to the tall people surrounding her. How old was Shiho-chan? Thirteen? The more Akemi looked at the small girl, the more she believed that to be Shiho. The hair, the face... When Akemi hurried over to the girl, she recognized her, except for the eyes. They weren't the bright eyes that she remembered of Shiho-chan.

"Shiho-chan?" she asked timidly. She had to repeat her question in a louder voice because of the noise.

"Hey." The girl attempted to smile but failed miserably. She thought for a minute and then added, "Neesan."

Akemi's bag slipped off her shoulder and fell onto the floor with a thump. All the scenes that she had played in her mind when she was on the plane—running out from the customs, spotting her beloved sister, hugging her little sister, and chatting like two old friends who hadn't met in a long time... They were all gone. Went up in smoke. The Organization had trained her well, was all Akemi could think of in that long minute of silence between them.

Shiho-chan looked as if she had just remembered something. She extended her hand a little. "Do you need help with the bag?" she asked, as if it was her first time interacting with Akemi, with people. It sounded rehearsed.

"No. I'm fine," Akemi said quickly. She picked up her bag and looked at Shiho-chan.

"Let's go, then," her little sister said, stuffed her hands into her coat pockets, and turned to lead the way. Akemi had the suspicion that her little sister was carrying a gun on her, but she didn't ask.

"So... How have you been?" Akemi tried to strike up a conversation.

"Okay."

"How's school?"

"Okay."

Akemi bit her lips. They were outside the building now, and a black Cadillac came to pick them up. After sitting in silence for several minutes in the car and watching the street lights pass by, Akemi asked, "How come you're in Cambridge? I thought they sent you to Los Angeles."

"MIT is in Cambridge, neesan."

Akemi's eyebrows went up. "You want to go to MIT?"

Shiho-chan eyed Akemi as if her sister didn't know what _she_ was talking about. "I am a student at MIT."

This time it was Akemi's turn to eye Shiho-chan as if she didn't know what she was talking about. "Undergraduate?" Akemi asked in disbelief. How old was her little sister again? Thirteen? When did most people enter college? Eighteen?

"No, graduate. Of course it's undergraduate." Shiho-chan turned to stare out the window.

Akemi sunk back in her seat. She fixed her gaze out the window as well. She didn't know what she was feeling. Ashamed, perhaps, to know so little about her sister. But another part of her shouted that it wasn't her fault. Akemi sighed, wishing that she could know what had happened to her baby sister.

-x-

Akemi pulled out the chair across Shiho-chan's desk and sat down, stirring her cup of tea. Shiho-chan glanced up but returned to her books and presumably her homework. "They treat you well?" Akemi asked. She wasn't going to miss the chance to talk to her sister in private; the Organization had agreed to remove surveillance for one evening.

"Yes."

Akemi studied her sister. "Is that a lie?"

Shiho-chan put her pen down with a clack and looked up. "I'm studying, neesan." She picked up her pen again and flipped a page of the fat chemistry book.

Akemi frowned. "What happened?"

Shiho-chan chewed on the cap of her pen before writing down another long equation.

"Damn it, Shiho!" Akemi yelled and swept all the books and papers off the table. Her cup of tea included. Shiho-chan responded with only a slightly surprised expression. She leaned back in her chair, but she was looking at some place only she could see. "What happened to you?"

"People change, neesan," Shiho-chan replied in a calm voice. She didn't sound that much different from how she'd responded to "how's school" the night before. Her gaze didn't falter, and she continued looking at the invisible point in space.

"You are thirteen years old! You shouldn't be doing this, this... triple integral, or that... Heisenberg's wave equation. You should be out there playing! With other children. Schoolwork-wise, you should just be starting negative numbers or something like that. Not this." Akemi could almost hear her sister's sneer in her mind: But I learnt complex numbers when I was seven.

"I don't mind, neesan," Shiho-chan decided to say after a moment of silence.

"And stop talking to me like I'm a spy from the Organization!" Akemi consciously reminded herself to keep her voice down. Shiho-chan didn't do anything wrong, she repeated to herself. It's the Organization. It's those stinking bastards. "I'm your sister! You can trust me!" Akemi pleaded. She sat down and buried her face in her hands. She looked up, her tears flowing. Shiho-chan still hadn't looked up at her. "Don't you remember when we were children?" Akemi asked. "When we used to play together, be mischievous together, confide in each other...? What happened?"

She half-expected Shiho-chan to shoot back with a "people change, neesan." But Shiho-chan remained quiet. Akemi shook her head and rose from her seat. "I'm sorry, Shiho-chan. I'm sorry. It's just... Everything is so different all of the sudden. I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have come." She gathered the books and papers from the floor and placed them on the desk. She cleaned up the mess from the cup of tea. All this time, Shiho-chan kept her gaze on the same invisible point in space. Akemi went into her room, pulled out her partly unpacked suitcase, and started packing again. Just one day, this vacation. Just one day. And it went so terribly wrong.

After Akemi had checked the time of flight and stepped into the hallway leading to the front door, hauling her luggage with her, she came face-to-face with Shiho-chan. Her little sister had her back pressed against the front door.

"Move, Shiho-chan. The next flight to Tokyo leaves in three hours."

Shiho-chan shook her head.

"I said, move." Akemi never remembered being so harsh with her little sister before. But it was for the better, she thought, ignoring the cruelty striking her inwardly.

"Don't go," Shiho-chan managed to get out the words in a whisper. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Please."

Akemi's hand parted with the luggage and she straightened her back. "Listen, Shiho-chan," she started gently.

"You don't understand how hard it was for me," Shiho-chan said, fighting back her tears. Akemi gave her little sister all her attention, indicating for her to go on. "I was afraid you'd change after all these years. Everyone I come in contact with put on such an act..."

"It's okay to cry." Akemi felt her eyes stinging and held out her arms to her little sister.

"No, it's not okay." Shiho-chan shook her head stubbornly.

"Yes, it is. With me, it is." Akemi let her tears fall first, watched Shiho-chan struggle with her inner self, watched the large blue eyes waver between being the child she was and the adult she was forced to become... Her little sister stepped forward and collapsed into her neesan's arms. The tears held back for nine years poured out that night.

-x-

Akemi, twenty-five, felt the tears returning. Rising from the desk, having finished all that she'd planned for that night, she walked to the window and peeked out the curtains. The city of Tokyo looked peaceful. Just like Cambridge the night she'd arrived. So many things had happened when she was in Cambridge. So many things continued to happen after Shiho-chan came back to Japan. She was glad Shiho-chan opened up a little ever since her visit to Cambridge. But it wasn't enough, she knew. She also knew she shouldn't ask for too much. But she was aware that if they left the Organization, everything bad would end. She smiled slightly, thinking back at the deal the Organization decided to make with her. Breaking the law didn't seem so bad if she could get her little sister back. Return her little sister the life that she deserved.

She left the window, took one last glance at the calendar, turned off the desk lamp, and went to sleep.


End file.
